DESPOINA
Fear is not necessarily a familiar friend for Despoina. She knows sadness—an endless, yawning chasm of sorrow—and she knows loneliness. She even knows jealousy. Rage. All of the negative emotions that Torryn can feast on, gorge himself on until he is sick with it. But for all of that, she does not often feel fear. (Perhaps one has to have some sense of self-preservation, self-worth, to feel it.)
Regardless, fear comes to her now in thick, nauseating waves.
Pain seizes her as the costume seems to shrink and wrap around her and then her bones bend, contorting. She rolls onto the ground, whining and crying low, paws coming up to scratch at her face in confusion. It is, mercifully, a short transition. She rolls onto her side, panting, and then rises up—her body still canine and yet distinctly other. Confused and more than a little sore, she glances down to see paws that are not her own. Soft brown and the thick fur turned velvet, she realizes that she is significantly shorter than before and that tail that had grown in a pair behind her is now one solid piece, hanging low.
If she had the words for it, or the knowledge, she would know she now stood as a young Rottweiler puppy, the build round and playful, her face distinctly softer than it had been as her usual hound.
But she doesn’t have the words for it.
Just the feeling of being trapped in this body that is so similar and yet so alien.
Yapping, her voice a higher pitch than usual, she springs forward into woods that come alive with motion. Shadows that take on their own shapes. Laughter that whistles through the wind. She catches sight of strange orange gourds dancing in the wind (pottery? on a night like this?) and she ducks her head, dipping into the shadows—moving as quickly as her young, uncoordinated legs will take her. She stumbles, more than once, rolling over, but her body is as limber as it is unstable, and the aches do not stay for long.
Something swoops down above her, cackling, and she freezes. She catches sight of bandages whipping around a corner, a low deep groan following, and then a howl that splinters through the night coming from further away—the sound hitting her low and hard. The fear comes again. Swift and fierce, and she rushes forward, wild with abandon, as she forgoes her previous plan of remaining quiet and unnoticed.
Twigs snap beneath her paws and the wind sluices against her face, but she runs as quickly as she can on short legs, whimpering with every step as the trees begin to struggle above her. The river comes quicker than she had thought and as she approaches it around the bend, realizing that she hadn’t thought far enough ahead to how she will get beyond this. She comes to a halt, mud digging between her toes, as the river roars before her, and she begins to whine under her breath again, pacing before the current.
She doesn’t hear the sound of a witch swooping down on her.
Doesn’t hear it until there are thin, spindly hands grabbing her by her ribcage and yanking her up, up, up and she smells the rotten pumpkin and bitter bite of poison. Despoina twists in the arms of her captor and glances upward, finding the face of the wretched creature looking down at her. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, or what’s happening, but her soft face crumbles, dark brown eyes turning liquid. When she squirms again, this time, it is against the chest of the monster and when she whimpers, it is a plea.
It works.
Somehow, it works.
The witch sighs, pulling one knobbed hand off the broom to stroke Despoina’s head, before cursing under her breath and adjusting the broomstick. They take a hard right, wind whipping by them, and her grip on Despoina loosens. Several moments pass with idle strokes from the monster before they reach the mountain and the witch dips down, gently depositing the puppy on the path. With a confused, perhaps even frustrated smile, the witch nods before spinning the broomstick and shooting up in the air.
And Despoina is left, equally baffled but safe, staring at the path up the mountain.
I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do